For many types of products, customizable appearance of the product may be desirable. For example, it may be attractive to be able to customize the appearance of at least a part of a product depending on its current state, to convey information about the current state of the product to a user in an intuitive and attractive way. It may also be perceived as attractive to the user of a product to be able to alter its appearance to reflect the user's personality or mood etc.
According to one well-known example, such customizable appearance of a product is realized by exchangeable “skins” on consumer electronic products, such as mobile telephones. This type of “skins” is typically provided as plastic shells that can be exchanged by the user of the product. It has also been suggested to use electrically controllable optical properties of an appearance-modifying device covering a surface of a product to alter the appearance of the product.